A screenshot of a drawing, a plan saved from a web page, an image a colleague exported, redrawn as clean linework and saved as a DWG that opens in AutoCAD at real size.
✦Drop a PNG here
JPG, PNG, WebP, HEIC, AVIF, TIFF, or PDF. Any size.
Open the converter3 free conversions. No card required.
Real conversions from PhotoCAD. Drag the slider to compare the image with the vector drawing.
Drop it in. A screenshot, an image exported from a viewer or a slide, a plan saved from a portal. The larger the image, the more the drawing has to work with, so take the screenshot zoomed in.
Attach the PNG as an underlay in AutoCAD, scale it, and draw over it. Exactly what you draw, and nothing until you have drawn it.
Scan2CAD, or Raster Design in AutoCAD, follows the pixels: a staircase of segments per line, halo and all.
A PNG of a drawing is usually a screenshot. The plan in a viewer that will not export, the detail in a PDF viewer someone sent a picture of, the elevation on a slide, the drawing a colleague exported as an image because that was the button in front of them. The lines are all there, and none of them are lines: a screenshot holds pixels that look like a drawing, and no scale at all.
A tracer follows those pixels, and follows the anti-aliasing with them, so every line comes back as a staircase of short segments with a soft halo traced beside it. The clean-up takes longer than the drawing did.
PhotoCAD reads the screenshot as a drawing and draws it again: a wall as one line, a curve as a smooth curve, a room that closes. Then the scale comes back from one dimension you know, a door width, a grid spacing, a figure printed on the drawing: click its two ends, type it, and the whole drawing scales to match. Download a DWG that opens in AutoCAD at full scale.
A screenshot holds no lines, only pixels that look like lines. What comes back is linework you can snap to, offset, and measure.
A drawing that only exists as an image on screen, yours or your client's to reuse. Screenshot it zoomed in, convert it, set the scale from a dimension, and work from it in CAD.
The PNG in the email instead of the DWG you asked for, turned into linework you can snap to while you wait for the original, or instead of it.
Drop in a PNG of a drawing and see it redrawn as clean linework at real size.
Your first 3 conversions are free — no card required.
PhotoCAD reads the drawing in the image and draws it again: continuous lines, smooth curves, closed shapes, without the screen's anti-aliasing or the compression around each line.
Set the real size from one known dimension, add what you need, and download. A DWG that opens in AutoCAD at full scale, with DXF, SVG, and PDF alongside.
Download the vector and go. Or set the real size, add dimensions, and lay it out on a titled sheet, all in PhotoCAD's Editor.
Click two points and enter the distance between them. The whole drawing scales to match.
Add dimensions, text, and arrows, point to point or locked horizontal and vertical.
Choose a sheet from Letter to ARCH E or A4 to A0, set the scale, and fill in the title block.
The drawing at real size in model space, with the sheet as a layout. DXF, SVG, and PDF included.
The DWG the screenshot was taken from. The best answer when someone will send it; this page is for when nobody will.
PhotoCADClean linework you can scale, dimension, lay out on an ISO, ANSI, or ARCH sheet, and issue.
A screenshot has no scale. Click two points with a known distance between them, type it, and the whole drawing scales to match, in millimeters or feet and inches.
Native DWG, with the drawing at real size in model space. DXF, SVG, and PDF come with it, and a titled sheet if you lay one out.
Add dimensions and notes, place the drawing on an ISO, ANSI, or ARCH sheet, fill in the title block, and issue it.
One detail out of a long document, screenshotted rather than extracted, redrawn as geometry rather than pinned in as an image.
A plan or a diagram that only survives in a presentation or a report, brought back into CAD at a real size.
